She spun to him and found the hint of a smile on his lips, his eyes intent on her.

Twenty minutes later, she stood at the foot of his bed, staring at a dozen empty journals that Draco had conjured on the floor. She peered around his shoulder, wringing her hands.

"Remember to think clearly of the catalog. And then—"

Draco turned to her, extending his wand with a lifted brow. She cleared her throat and took it from him. "Right. Thanks."

Closing her eyes, she focused on the catalog. "Access Hogwarts: A History."

Magic thrummed in her blood as she pointed the wand at the first blank journal. "Transcribo."

The pages shivered for a moment before the ink bloomed, rearranging itself until she was staring down at the familiar pages of her childhood. She grinned and tried several of the Scourer journals, making sure they would appear as well.

Draco tried a different volume on potions, and then asked the catalog to transcribe the titles of all books with references to blood magic. Hermione's eyes lit up as the pages filled, one after another. Ten minutes had barely passed before Draco had to conjure another dozen blank journals.

An hour later, she was sitting on the floor of Draco's bedroom with books spread out in every direction, deep into research for creating a Pensieve from scratch while Draco looked into spells on memory transfer.

She huffed when she finished reading a two-page list of materials that were either unfamiliar or extremely rare. "This is impossible." Her neck ached, and she rubbed it before looking up at him. "Will you write to Theo?"

His jaw clenched as he lifted his eyes to her. "And say what, exactly? 'Got a spare Pensieve?'"

"We need help, Draco." Hermione pressed her lips together. "Perhaps he could come visit. You're very ill with this unknown curse, and you'd like to see some friendly faces."

"That's not suspicious at all," he said, flipping a page.

"Well, I'm getting nowhere. And every hour we spend on this is one less hour we spend on the tattoos. I can look at alternative ways of viewing memories, or you can write to a friend who may save us months of research."

Draco heaved a dramatic sigh, just as he used to at Hogwarts, and Hermione hid a smile when he dragged himself to his feet and out the door to post the letter.

They researched late through the evening. Draco apologized to Narcissa on their behalf and had the elves send dinner up to them, but Hermione barely picked at it, too caught up in her notes. She switched back and forth between tattoo research and memory research, picking up one when the other frustrated her.

As the clock ticked toward one in the morning, she glanced at Draco, in his armchair still flipping pages with a frown. Her eyelids were beginning to droop, but she could get through the rest of this chapter on the Runes used in the first Pensieve creation before calling it a night. She rubbed her eyes, struggling against yawning, and read until her head dropped onto her chest.